Dr. Paul Bonheim
* 1877

Dr. Paul Bonheim, born 19 Sep. 1877 in Rostock, emigrated to the Netherlands, death by suicide on 13 December 1942
Käthe Bonheim, born 29 Sep. 1877 in Schwerin, emigrated to the Netherlands, death by suicide on 13 December 1942
Erwin Alfred Bonheim, born 19 December 1910, emigrated to the Netherlands, deported to Westerbork then Auschwitz, date of death declared as 31 July 1944

Brahmsallee 19

Paul Bonheim was born on 19 September 1877 in Rostock. His parents were the merchant Hermann Bonheim (born 16 August 1843 in Schwerin, died 29 November 1908 in Hamburg) and his first wife Rosa Bernheim (born on 29 November 1856 born in Greifswald, died on March 27, 1885 in Rostock), whom he married on 24 August 1874 in Greifswald. Paul attended secondary school in Rostock from 1883 to 1891. On March 18, 1891, the family moved Klosterallee 45 in Hamburg, and Paul went to the prestigious Wilhelm-Gymnasium, where he passed his final exam on September 5, 1895.

He then studied medicine in Munich, Jena, Berlin (where he studied under Prof. Rudolf Virchow), and Kiel, where he passed the medical state examination on 25 May 1900, held the oral defense of his dissertation "On Dextrocardia" on 31 May, and received his doctorate on 20 August.

He and his wife Käthe Friedensohn (*29 September 1877 in Schwerin, see biography: Alfred and Gertrud Friedensohn) had two sons, both born in Hamburg: Hans Hermann, born on 6 March 1907, and Erwin Alfred, born on 19 December 1910.

Paul Bonheim did his residency from 1902-1903, and beginning on 15 November 1904 was an assistant physician in the surgery clinic of the St. Georg general hospital. In 1904 he opened a practice as a surgery specialist. In 1906 he joined the Aerztliche Verein in Hamburg, the precursor to the present-day Medical Association (Ärztekammer). At that time he and his family were living at Grindelberg 9a.

His father Hermann married his second wife Jenny Markheim (born 18 August 1859 in Fulda, died 17 October 1928 in Hamburg) on 27 December 1887. The couple had two children, Fritz (born 22 February 1892 in Hamburg) and Käthe (born 4 September 1889).

In the First World War Paul served as chief physician at a military hospital in Hamburg, and Fritz as a lieutenant in the 12th Reserve Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Army. Fritz was killed on 30 September 1915 in Beuvraignes in northern France.

In the early 1920s Dr. Bonheim became the senior physician for internal medicine and head of the Masonic hospital on Klein Schäferkamp. Founded in 1795, it had a long tradition as a private clinic and was owned by the Vereinigte 5 Hamburger Logen (5 United Hamburg Lodges). On October 28, 1920, he became a member of the Masonic chapter "Absalom zu den drei Nesseln." Together with Caesar Wolf, the hospital’s managing director (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), he modernized the hospital extensively in the following years.

Dr. Bonheim's eldest son Hans Hermann fell victim to the measures of the "Law for the Reconstitution of the Civil Service" of 7 April 1933, which excluded "non-Aryan" doctors from the national health insurance system, and had the purpose of removing all "non-Aryan" employees from public institutions. Hans Hermann attended the Heinrich Hertz Gymnasium in Hamburg from 1916 to 1925, then studied medicine in Freiburg, Berlin and Hamburg. On 8 May 1930 he passed the state medical examination, and on 13 June 1931 he was granted his license to practice medicine. He received his doctorate on 7 July 1931. He was dismissed from his residencies at the Barmbek general hospital and in the Eppendorf University Clinic because of his Jewish heritage. Thanks to his father, he temporarily found employment at the Masonic Hospital, but all "non-Aryan" employees were dismissed in May 1933.

Paul Bonheim was also dismissed from the Masonic hospital, on December 31, 1933. Both physicians were allowed to continue practicing medicine in their apartment on Hansastrasse 70, where many "Aryan" patients continued to trust their long-standing medical experience. On 30 September 1938, however, the "Fourth Regulation on Reichs’ Citizen Law" withdrew the licenses of all "non-Aryan" physicians. Along with the practice, the family also lost their privately-owned apartment. Paul and Käthe Bonheim moved into a new apartment at Oberstraße 62.

Hans, who had moved to Innocentiastraße 57, planned to leave Germany for the United States. During the November Pogrom of 1938, however, he was arrested on the day of his planned departure and sent to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, where he was severely mistreated. He was released on 24 December 1938 after committing to emigrate immediately.

On 8 January 1939, Hans Bonheim left Hamburg for Rotterdam, where he boarded a ship for New York on 25 February 1939.

His parents and younger brother were determined to follow him to the US. Erwin Alfred, who was living with his aunt Elsa Davidsohn in Berlin and apprenticing as a printer, therefore returned to Hamburg.

Because he was not allowed to remove assets from the German Reich, Paul Bonheim generously left a large part of his considerable fortune to his relatives who remained in Germany and made donations to various Jewish associations. Paul, Käthe, and Erwin Alfred Bonheim left Hamburg for Holland on 19 February 1939.

At the same time, Paul's half-sister Kathe was attempting to emigrate to Sweden. She lost her job as bank clerk in June 1931, after having worked for the Dresdner Bank for 24 years, and was unable, as a Jew, to find a new job after 1933. As a secretary at the Israelitische Vorschussinstitut, a foundation that aided small Jewish businesses, she was summoned several times between 1936 and February 1939 to "interrogations" at the Gestapo headquarters at Stadthausbrücke, where she was subjected to severe mistreatment. Five months after her emigration to Sweden, she was diagnosed with an incurable eye disease, which left her completely blind in 1943.

Paul, Käthe and Erwin Alfred Bonheim never reached their goal of emigration to the US. When the Wehrmacht invaded the neutral Netherlands on 10 May 1940, Jews who had fled there faced renewed persecution. Beginning in May 1942, emigrants as well as the native Jewish population were sent to the Westerbork and Vught Concentration Camps, and deported from there to the extermination camps. Paul and Käthe Bonheim resolved not to take this route. In the fall of 1941 they had moved from Rotterdam to De Steeg in Gelderland, where they took their lives on 13 December 1942, both seriously ill and probably with no hope for the future.

The Nazi regime had revoked the Bonheims’ German citizenship and Paul’s and Hans Hermann’s academic degrees in July 1941.

Erwin Alfred was arrested during a raid in Amsterdam on 10 January 1944 and deported via Westerbork to the Auschwitz Extermination Camp. His date of death was later declared as 31 July 1944.

Käthe Bonheim, unable to work and destitute, dependent on state welfare, lived in the state home for the elderly in Växjö, Sweden until her death on 27 November 1963.

Hans Bonheim, who had fled to the US, died on 25 August 1989 in Pompano Beach, Florida. The family name is carried on by his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Stolpersteine in memory of Paul, Käthe, and Erwin Alfred Bonheim were placed at Brahmsallee 19 (formerly Hansastraße 70) in July 2014. Karl Bonheim, Paul and Käthe’s grandson and Erwin Alfred’s great-nephew, and his family were present for the occasion.

A Stolperstein in memory of Paul Bonheim was also placed at the former Masonic hospital on Klein Schäferkamp.

Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.